Friday, April 17, 2009

i got a big & fancy new camera last week, & while i'm getting to grips with all its other features (it's very tech-tastic, & frankly i'm more than a little scared of it!) i've been playing around with some macro shots. everything has been subject to some up-close scrutiny... (you can click on any picture to go to its flickr page & see it embiggened!)

closeup combed tops

closeup knitting

closeup handspun

& even closeup pup

nothing is safe anymore - just wait till i figure out the rest of the functions!!

Friday, April 10, 2009

seriously... how is it april already?? i haven't even got the faintest idea where all the time has gone. i've been so busy with work, dyeing piles of yarn & spinning up some odd blended & textured skeins of handspun for sale as well. business has been great so far this year (may it continue!), so it's been keeping me pretty occupied - which is fabulous, but exhausting!! since i'm still at K1 Yarns two days a week, i'm working a six-day week at the moment - i'm loving it all, but it's pretty tiring.i'm still managing to find time to work on a couple of selfish things as well, though...

this little pile of handspun has been a work in progress for a while, but i finally plied the last batch today! it's a wonderfully coloured blend of dyed merino & bleached tussah silk from wingham wool work, which i bought last august (!) at the week-long spinning course i went to. i've spun it up into a two-ply chunky weight yarn with lots of bounce, & have ended up with roughly 700 grams & 900-ish yards of lovely handspun. i'm hoping that it's nearly enough for a cardi, & am planning a reversed version of kariebookish's garter yoke cardi (ravelled here - she's using handspun for the yoke & mill-spun yarn for the body, & i plan to switch that & use some mill-spun chunky shetland for the yoke & my handspun for the body). fingers crossed there's enough handspun yarn!& since it was the RSA's birthday recently, of course there had to be the inevitable gift-socks - always hand-knitted, & always gifted late (blush).

the pattern, once again, is yarnissima's brainless sock, once again knitted in wollmeise sockenwolle, this time in colourway "drachenblut". i made a pair of these already for the RSA, but left out the cabling along the sides of the foot upon request, based on the worry that they would be "uncomfy" (resulting in a pair of socks that, while lovely, were a little boring to work on). then i spotted these on yarnissima's blog, & showed the photo to the RSA. here's what happened:me: "look at these socks - remember i bought this colourway to make socks for you? here's how it knits up".the RSA: "wow, those are cool. can you make me a pair exactly like that?".me: "um... i just made you a pair of those exact socks in a different colour, but you made me leave the cable pattern off the foot in case it wasn't comfortable. it was really boring."the RSA: "i know. but those ones look really cool. can you make some with the cable this time?"me: "siiiiiigh..."so, back to the original pattern, then? luckily, this is is a great pattern - just mindless enough so that you can work on it even if you're working six days a week & are totally exhausted, but just interesting enough that you don't fall asleep while knitting it! & it's absolutely the perfect pattern match for this sock yarn - i have a nice little pile of wollmeise stashed away, and i'm seriously planning to knit each & every skein into a pair of these socks.just as well - if things keep going at this rate, "brainless" knits might be all i can manage from now on!